The Faculty Council appoints two preliminary examiners for the dissertation manuscript. The proposal on the preliminary examiners is made by the coordinating academic. The preliminary examiner proposal must be approved by the doctoral candidate.
The impartiality of the preliminary examiners will be verified by Viikki doctoral study services. The education coordinator acting as the presenting official will prepare the matter for the agenda of the Faculty Council. The timetables of the faculty councils of the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences are decided on a yearly basis. The timetables are available on the website of the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences.
For the purpose of appointing preliminary examiners, the doctoral candidate must submit a dissertation manuscript with the documents listed below to Viikki doctoral study services by email at viikki-phd@helsinki.fi by the deadline set for the submission of materials to the Faculty Council:
1. The dissertation manuscript in one PDF file. The manuscript includes a summarising report and the component articles of the dissertation. Should the file be too large to send by email, the doctoral candidate can send it, for example, with Funet FileSender.
2. Report on the division of labour, if the dissertation contains co-authored publications. The division of labour between the authors must be explained briefly in such a way that it is possible for the preliminary examiners and the Faculty Council to assess the sufficiency of the doctoral candidate’s independent scientific contribution to the dissertation. The report on the division of labour is to be signed by the doctoral candidate and the main supervisor. It is possible to include the same co-authored publication in more than one dissertation, so the report on the division of labour must include information on whether the publication has been used or will be used in another dissertation. If the preliminary examiners are not proficient in Finnish, the report must be written in English.
3. Summarising report and a list of the component parts of the dissertation An English-language summarising report of about one page will be appended to the proposal at the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, which includes the name of the dissertation author, the title of the dissertation, a short description of the dissertation (approx. 5 sentences) and a list of the composite articles of the dissertation.
4. A statement by the thesis committee In addition, the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences will append to the proposal a statement by the thesis committee on the doctoral dissertation as well as a report on the thesis committee meetings. Close to the completion of doctoral studies, the thesis committee draws up a signed statement (signed by all members of the thesis committee), which states that according to the preliminary assessment of the thesis committee, the student has achieved competence in their own field of study and the capability to conduct the independent scientific work required of a doctoral candidate, as well as scientific results sufficient for a doctoral dissertation. The statement must also provide a description of how this competence is manifested and that the required results have been achieved.
The report on the thesis committee activities must include information about the thesis committee’s meeting schedules. The thesis committee’s statement and the report can be included in a single document.
5. Confirmation of a passed plagiarism detection test, which the coordinating academic sends by email to Viikki doctoral study services (viikki-phd@helsinki.fi).
The doctoral candidate will submit the dissertation manuscript and the unpublished articles to the plagiarism detection system Ouriginal (previously called Urkund) before submitting them for the preliminary examination. The manuscript is to be sent to the coordinating academic’s Ouriginal address, which is usually in the format: firstname.lastname.hy@analyysi.urkund.fi.
The coordinating academic checks the Ouriginal report and notifies the Viikki doctoral study services that the dissertation has passed the plagiarism detection test. Further information about Ouriginal is available in an article about plagiarism detection.
6. Theoretical studies, i.e. Discipline-specific studies -module and Transferable skills -module, must be completed and registered in Sisu before the pre-examination process can be started. The instructions are on the web-page Registration of doctoral studies.
You can find the degree structure and required studies on the page Scope and structure of doctoral degrees. Note, choose your own doctoral programme from the site's degree programme menu.
7. The coordinating academic makes a proposal on the pre-examiners to the Faculty Council using the electronic Proposal for the preliminary examiners -form. The completed form is printed and sent to be signed by the coordinating academic and the doctoral candidate, after which it can be scanned and sent to Viikki doctoral study services (viikki-phd@helsinki.fi).
8. When needed, in addition to the above:
- In addition, a statement by the supervisor and the coordinating academic will be appended to the proposal at the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, if the number of component articles in an article-based dissertations deviates from the norm (3–5 articles). It is recommended that this statement includes, for example, a justification for the proposed composite dissertation, the length of the articles and the required workload, the scientific significance of the articles, the extent of the contribution made by the doctoral candidate in writing the articles, other possible publications by the doctoral candidate, etc.
- The CV of the proposed preliminary examiner and a list of publications (or links to them) if they do not possess the title of professor or docent.